Time. It's a funny thing, isn't it? Like an obedient soldier, never changing its pace, it seems to endlessly, dutifully keep marching on, never stopping, never pausing for a moment's rest. For some of us, the older we get or the more we are enjoying ourselves, the faster it seems to slip by, almost unnoticed. In some instances, perhaps, when we are engaged in an activity we don't really enjoy. Like a soldier marching for miles with a heavy pack, time seems to slow to an unbearable crawl. And yet, for many, a lifespan of 70 to 80 years is merely a drop in the bucket when there remains the undying hope of an eternity soon to follow it. But what is time? Sure, we measure it with our clocks. We are each well aware of its ravages, the impact it has on our bodies and minds. But do we understand it? With all certainty? The smartest men that have ever lived have made determined efforts to crack the mystery of this strange phenomenon called time. To capture it, to control it. And if we gain control of it, is it possible that we could reverse it? Or could we independently travel through the veil that separates this present moment from the past?

So far outside of science fiction, we have failed in this respect. But no doubt, somewhere, by some hand, this research continues. But bizarre as it may sound to the practical mind, despite our inability to control it, there do seem to be instances where, without warning, men and women going about their everyday lives have suddenly and most inexplicably been transported to a different time. Among these are three british Royal Navy cadets during a routine training event as they walked through a small village in the Suffolk countryside. This is the story of the Kersey time slip. I'm Luke Lamanna, and this is wartime stories.

That'll be the village, wasn't it, Kelsey? He said, yep, that's the church tower the old department mentioned. Suppose we could use that for a dead reckoning.

Yeah, look, that's great, you know, can we just get a move on? I make. Marvin, over here.

I should have skipped breakfast then.

Yeah. Yeah, let's go. It was Sunday, a clear, bright October morning in 1957. Autumn had fully set. The now brilliant red and yellow leaves were beginning to fall. Three young naval cadets, William Lang, Michael Crowley and Ray Baker, were slowly pacing their way across the open meadows and fields of Suffolk county. Recently joined with the British Royal Navy, the three young men and a number of other cadets had spent the weekend out on a field training assignment. Theyd spent the night in a barn, its use by the navy no doubt sanctioned by a patriotic local farmer. The next morning, the cadets set out on a map reading exercise in much the same way that modern land navigation is conducted in the military. They were instructed to walk a plotted route over several kilometers of the nearby countryside. Along their route, they would be plotting waypoints, stopping to conduct military type observations of a specific but unknown location, and then returning to their superiors to report their findings to ensure they had reached their assigned grid point. For these three cadets, their assigned location was the small village of Kersey. Having finally spotted the nearby hamlet, its church tower brimming over the surrounding treetops and its bells sounding the start of a morning church service, the young men continued towards it.

But upon reaching the forested outskirts of Kersey, they suddenly noticed something odd.

Wait. What happened to the bells?

Hmm. I don't know.

Very strange, isn't it?

The sound of the church's bells had suddenly, almost unnaturally, disappeared. Not even a final resounding tone that one would typically expect to hear. Just an abrupt silence. And once they descended the narrow lane into the village, despite the bells having rung in the morning service, there didn't appear to be a single congregant making their way past them towards the church. In fact, as they turned around to view the lane leading back up the hill behind them, they suddenly realized there was no church. But what about the bell tower they had seen? That was the only prominent feature of the town that could be seen from a distance. Lang later recalled that the party had not seen the tower. After they descended into the village and the strange pall of silence fell.

There was no sign of a church. I would certainly have seen it if I had a field of observation of 360 degrees. But no church.

Slightly confused, the cadets continued down the main street of the village. But what they began to see only added to their sense of unease. The roads of the village were merely narrow, unpaved dirt lanes, not a car in sight. They could have overlooked the dirt roads, but this being 1957, they certainly expected to see at least a few vehicles. Looking to the houses themselves, these were equally strange. Small, shabby, seemingly hand built, timber framed homes with either thatched or wood shingled roofs. Had they walked onto the elaborate set of some medieval film production? No, this was certainly the town of Kersey by their map coordinates. But what truly sent a chill down the young men's spines was the overwhelming and eerie silence of the place.

This is too weird.

Yeah, it's creepy, if you ask me. Unnatural.

You want to say something unnatural? Have a look at these docks. Don't seem to move much, do they like their observation about the missing church. As they passed through this village, they also became increasingly aware that there wasn't a single person anywhere in sight. And as for animal life, they saw only a few ducks standing both motionless and unnaturally silent by a shallow stream that ran through the village. But there were no sounds of songbirds or other noises one might expect to hear. Those sounds may well have stopped at the same time as the church bells, pausing at the bridge that crossed over the small stream and taking a few sips of water from it. Not sure what to make of the increasing strangeness of the place, they decided to rest for a few minutes and conduct their assigned observations of the help pinpoint the likely date on which Lange and his companions visited the village. In his research, he noted that the construction of the tower was halted by the ravages of the Black Death, 1348 to 1349, which killed half the population of Kersey, which likely had a minute population of perhaps 100 or so residents at that time. Mackenzie concluded that the cadets might have seen the village as it had been in the aftermath of the plague, when the shell of the half constructed church would have been hidden by the trees. And it's easy enough to find that many villages like Kersey were completely abandoned. Abandoned during the Black Death, which could explain the absence of human life in the town. Survivors quickly fled the confines of their villages in sheer terror, hoping to avoid the disease spreading amongst them. Many would, of course, later return to their homes and livelihoods once the disease had run its course. Of course, if this estimation of time were accurate, it is worth pointing out that paranormal events and strange happenings are often associated with locations that at some point have experienced grotesque amounts of death and suffering, a place where perhaps such supernatural energies are most potent if we can bring ourselves to believe in such a thing.But what else can we say if we were the ones who witnessed what those three young men did? We have every reason to be skeptical. Such a story baffles the mind, but no one has offered a valid explanation for what those three boys experienced and their apparent ability to describe the town as it was well before their current time. However, the structure of the town and its buildings, even presently, continues to resemble its medieval origins, and it has become a favorite location for filmmakers, being famed as one of the oldest and most picturesque medieval villages of England. Some have suggested that perhaps the cadets, specifically Lange and Crowley, who hailed from different parts of the UK, were simply mistaken, considering the towns true appearance to be strange by their own contemporary perception. But since Baker was from the area, the medieval appearance of the town, even if it was witnessed several hundred years prior, was not considered as remarkable by him. This does not account for the unpaved dirt lanes, houses being empty, the lack of modern technology, and the town seemingly abandoned and unnaturally silent. And how did they recall the details about the butcher's shop?The building was a private residence. In 1957, Mackenzie found that the street was first surfaced using pea shingle and tar soon after the Second World War. He later found that most roads in the west Suffolk area were surface, dressed for the first time in the late 1940s, and more recent photos of the village, taken sometime in the 1930s or forties, depict a much different look compared to the depictions offered by the cadets. The stream they stopped at is visible between the trees up the lane. It is more easily seen in an earlier photo, dating back further to the 1890s, when the butcher shop was still in operation, with cattle passing through the water splash in the road, with the wood and brick bridge crossing over the stream on the left hand side. When Lang was shown the older three photos, he immediately denied that it could depict the landscape around the stream as he saw it in 1957, some 20 or more years after the most recent photos were taken. Meaning what he described had to have happened before those photos were taken. The background houses and church weren't there, he noted, and there were too many houses in view and not enough trees, with the houses he saw near the stream being few and far between, with the right side of the lane leading up to the church being mostly forested now.In the 1950s, documents show that officials with the Suffolk Preservation Society were making every effort to preserve the picturesque medieval appearance of the town, trying to keep its skyline free from unsightly aerials and wires. But yet another photo, dated before 1957, shows at least one telephone pole in the town, along with many more houses standing right alongside the stream where the three boys would have been. Historically speaking, there are inconsistencies with attempts to date these boys time travel to a more precise time frame. The church, the lack of houses, the lack of furniture in the homes, the type of glass windowpanes the boys described. Then again, we can only base our conclusions about these certain features on the reliability of what is known about the village of Kersey throughout the centuries. But much more bizarrely, there is the issue of the absolute surrealness of the town and the surrounding area described by the men. The lack of noises, of wind, birds, and, save for a few ducks, a complete absence of animal life. None of these strange things can amount to what could be considered even a momentary slip back through time, because certainly the 14th century still had things like wind and songbirds.That alone makes the case much easier for skeptics to write it off as a complete fabrication, something at least two of these men conspired together on. Regardless of any reports of sincerity in their testimony or the trustworthiness and scrupulous research of a paranormal scholar like Andrew Mackenzie, I myself am subject to inherent skepticism, and I cannot deny the motivations of being a laborer in a creative field who wishes to draw an audience that wants to hear about these strange, unbelievable, but purportedly true stories. But regardless of such individual motivations, specifically those of the three men and Andrew Mackenzie, I suppose, as with all things, it boils down to what we know, and there is always a massive void of things we do not know, some of which are theories and ideas that possibly lie beyond our comprehension in the realm of science fiction. Missing people in episodes of lost time, the crossing of parallel dimensions, the folding of space that connects two points not by measurable distance, but by time, alternate realities and parallel universes. Well, whatever the case, whether cross dimensional interlopers or unwary time travelers, it cannot be ignored that the experience described by these three cadets are not entirely unique.There are other notable cases of similar occurrences, most of which are not military related but are no less intriguing places like the palace of Versailles or on Bold street in the city of Liverpool. These sort of time slip incidents may be the least reported among unexplained phenomena, but the beautiful, rolling countryside of Suffolk, where the village of Kersey is located, is not at all unfamiliar with bizarre happenings. Historical tragedies like the black plague in the 14th century, or the entire area of West Suffolk being bombarded by germans during World War two, no doubt because of its routes to seaports and proximity to London. Bizarre encounters with strange animals, or even such bizarre stories as the appearance of two unusual children in the village of Woolpit in the 12th century. Children with green colored skin who spoke an unknown language and claimed to have come from somewhere else. Supernatural sightings of specters and poltergeists reported in homes, churches, graveyards, and forests are rife in the surrounding area. And then there's the UFO activity. In December 1980, the Rendelsham forest incident, a UFO sighting, met with a military response and investigation that would become a prominent case study among Ufologists.Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt and other witnesses described a UFO landing in the forest, clearly under intelligent control, spotted near RAF Woodbridge, an american air force installation in Suffolk. Lieutenant Colonel Halts service history, his tours during World War two, Vietnam and Korea, and his rank lent a lot of credibility towards his claims that what he saw was a real alien craft. Radar operators at the nearby Wattecham airfield likewise picked up what they called the bogey, which they lost radar contact with near the forest. And this is only one of many reported UFO sightings over Suffolk in the following decades. All of these strange things occurring years apart and with no seeming connection other than their close physical proximity and their high strangeness, what can we deduce from it all? Perhaps nothing. Perhaps something, and perhaps some of you who reside in and around Suffolk can offer us more accounts of strange happenings, and we would, of course, be eager to hear them. But until such a time in the future as we might come to understand them, if ever, then we can at least while away the hours pondering the many peculiar mysteries that these stories have left behind.Wartime stories is created and hosted by me, Luke Lamanna. Executive produced by Mister Ballin, Nick Witters, and Zach Lebitt. Written by Jake Howard and myself. Audio editing and sound design by me, Cole Acacio, and Whit La Casio. Additional editing by Davin Intag and Jordan Stidham. Research by me, Jake Howard, Evan Beamer, and Camille Callahan. Mixed and mastered by Brendan Cain. Production Supervision by Jeremy Bohn. Production coordination by Avery Siegel. Additional production support by Brooklyn Goodenhouse. Artwork by Jessica Clarkson Kiner, Robin Vane, and Picada. If you'd like to get in touch or share your own story, you can email me at info@wartimestories.com thank you so much for listening to wartime stories.

help pinpoint the likely date on which Lange and his companions visited the village. In his research, he noted that the construction of the tower was halted by the ravages of the Black Death, 1348 to 1349, which killed half the population of Kersey, which likely had a minute population of perhaps 100 or so residents at that time. Mackenzie concluded that the cadets might have seen the village as it had been in the aftermath of the plague, when the shell of the half constructed church would have been hidden by the trees. And it's easy enough to find that many villages like Kersey were completely abandoned. Abandoned during the Black Death, which could explain the absence of human life in the town. Survivors quickly fled the confines of their villages in sheer terror, hoping to avoid the disease spreading amongst them. Many would, of course, later return to their homes and livelihoods once the disease had run its course. Of course, if this estimation of time were accurate, it is worth pointing out that paranormal events and strange happenings are often associated with locations that at some point have experienced grotesque amounts of death and suffering, a place where perhaps such supernatural energies are most potent if we can bring ourselves to believe in such a thing.

But what else can we say if we were the ones who witnessed what those three young men did? We have every reason to be skeptical. Such a story baffles the mind, but no one has offered a valid explanation for what those three boys experienced and their apparent ability to describe the town as it was well before their current time. However, the structure of the town and its buildings, even presently, continues to resemble its medieval origins, and it has become a favorite location for filmmakers, being famed as one of the oldest and most picturesque medieval villages of England. Some have suggested that perhaps the cadets, specifically Lange and Crowley, who hailed from different parts of the UK, were simply mistaken, considering the towns true appearance to be strange by their own contemporary perception. But since Baker was from the area, the medieval appearance of the town, even if it was witnessed several hundred years prior, was not considered as remarkable by him. This does not account for the unpaved dirt lanes, houses being empty, the lack of modern technology, and the town seemingly abandoned and unnaturally silent. And how did they recall the details about the butcher's shop?

The building was a private residence. In 1957, Mackenzie found that the street was first surfaced using pea shingle and tar soon after the Second World War. He later found that most roads in the west Suffolk area were surface, dressed for the first time in the late 1940s, and more recent photos of the village, taken sometime in the 1930s or forties, depict a much different look compared to the depictions offered by the cadets. The stream they stopped at is visible between the trees up the lane. It is more easily seen in an earlier photo, dating back further to the 1890s, when the butcher shop was still in operation, with cattle passing through the water splash in the road, with the wood and brick bridge crossing over the stream on the left hand side. When Lang was shown the older three photos, he immediately denied that it could depict the landscape around the stream as he saw it in 1957, some 20 or more years after the most recent photos were taken. Meaning what he described had to have happened before those photos were taken. The background houses and church weren't there, he noted, and there were too many houses in view and not enough trees, with the houses he saw near the stream being few and far between, with the right side of the lane leading up to the church being mostly forested now.

In the 1950s, documents show that officials with the Suffolk Preservation Society were making every effort to preserve the picturesque medieval appearance of the town, trying to keep its skyline free from unsightly aerials and wires. But yet another photo, dated before 1957, shows at least one telephone pole in the town, along with many more houses standing right alongside the stream where the three boys would have been. Historically speaking, there are inconsistencies with attempts to date these boys time travel to a more precise time frame. The church, the lack of houses, the lack of furniture in the homes, the type of glass windowpanes the boys described. Then again, we can only base our conclusions about these certain features on the reliability of what is known about the village of Kersey throughout the centuries. But much more bizarrely, there is the issue of the absolute surrealness of the town and the surrounding area described by the men. The lack of noises, of wind, birds, and, save for a few ducks, a complete absence of animal life. None of these strange things can amount to what could be considered even a momentary slip back through time, because certainly the 14th century still had things like wind and songbirds.

That alone makes the case much easier for skeptics to write it off as a complete fabrication, something at least two of these men conspired together on. Regardless of any reports of sincerity in their testimony or the trustworthiness and scrupulous research of a paranormal scholar like Andrew Mackenzie, I myself am subject to inherent skepticism, and I cannot deny the motivations of being a laborer in a creative field who wishes to draw an audience that wants to hear about these strange, unbelievable, but purportedly true stories. But regardless of such individual motivations, specifically those of the three men and Andrew Mackenzie, I suppose, as with all things, it boils down to what we know, and there is always a massive void of things we do not know, some of which are theories and ideas that possibly lie beyond our comprehension in the realm of science fiction. Missing people in episodes of lost time, the crossing of parallel dimensions, the folding of space that connects two points not by measurable distance, but by time, alternate realities and parallel universes. Well, whatever the case, whether cross dimensional interlopers or unwary time travelers, it cannot be ignored that the experience described by these three cadets are not entirely unique.

There are other notable cases of similar occurrences, most of which are not military related but are no less intriguing places like the palace of Versailles or on Bold street in the city of Liverpool. These sort of time slip incidents may be the least reported among unexplained phenomena, but the beautiful, rolling countryside of Suffolk, where the village of Kersey is located, is not at all unfamiliar with bizarre happenings. Historical tragedies like the black plague in the 14th century, or the entire area of West Suffolk being bombarded by germans during World War two, no doubt because of its routes to seaports and proximity to London. Bizarre encounters with strange animals, or even such bizarre stories as the appearance of two unusual children in the village of Woolpit in the 12th century. Children with green colored skin who spoke an unknown language and claimed to have come from somewhere else. Supernatural sightings of specters and poltergeists reported in homes, churches, graveyards, and forests are rife in the surrounding area. And then there's the UFO activity. In December 1980, the Rendelsham forest incident, a UFO sighting, met with a military response and investigation that would become a prominent case study among Ufologists.

Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt and other witnesses described a UFO landing in the forest, clearly under intelligent control, spotted near RAF Woodbridge, an american air force installation in Suffolk. Lieutenant Colonel Halts service history, his tours during World War two, Vietnam and Korea, and his rank lent a lot of credibility towards his claims that what he saw was a real alien craft. Radar operators at the nearby Wattecham airfield likewise picked up what they called the bogey, which they lost radar contact with near the forest. And this is only one of many reported UFO sightings over Suffolk in the following decades. All of these strange things occurring years apart and with no seeming connection other than their close physical proximity and their high strangeness, what can we deduce from it all? Perhaps nothing. Perhaps something, and perhaps some of you who reside in and around Suffolk can offer us more accounts of strange happenings, and we would, of course, be eager to hear them. But until such a time in the future as we might come to understand them, if ever, then we can at least while away the hours pondering the many peculiar mysteries that these stories have left behind.

Wartime stories is created and hosted by me, Luke Lamanna. Executive produced by Mister Ballin, Nick Witters, and Zach Lebitt. Written by Jake Howard and myself. Audio editing and sound design by me, Cole Acacio, and Whit La Casio. Additional editing by Davin Intag and Jordan Stidham. Research by me, Jake Howard, Evan Beamer, and Camille Callahan. Mixed and mastered by Brendan Cain. Production Supervision by Jeremy Bohn. Production coordination by Avery Siegel. Additional production support by Brooklyn Goodenhouse. Artwork by Jessica Clarkson Kiner, Robin Vane, and Picada. If you'd like to get in touch or share your own story, you can email me at info@wartimestories.com thank you so much for listening to wartime stories.